Tuesday Fiction

The Groundskeeper: Deadhead

This is the prologue for the next Chloe story, my cozy fantasy set in a cemetery with a pastel goth girl who might be in over her head but she’s not letting on. Chloe was based on my daughter, in the first couple of stories, and I eventually let Chloe drift into being very much her own person - believe me, as a writer, there’s very little I can do to control the character, and if I try that’s when I get blocked up and can’t finish a story.

For the paid subscribers, you will be seeing chapters every Tuesday until it’s done. I’ll make this and the next chapter free as a teaser, after that if you can’t wait for publication, well, support my writing! LOL

If you haven’t yet made the acquaintance of Chloe, Mr. Cruor, and the many denizens of Belleview Cemetery, you may want to start with the first story. I think you can read this one as a standalone, however.

Enjoy! As always, rough draft, hasn’t been edited, feedback welcome… you know the drill.

Prologue

The sky was gray and sulky over Belleview, but Chloe didn’t mind. It was cooler than sunshine, and her project was going to be hot work. She’d driven the little cart up and around, to the backside of the hilltop, where the invasive honeysuckle bushes were the worst. Today she was going to do battle with the invaders. It was time to root them out, and reclaim another small part of the cemetery.

She pulled a shovel out of the trash can strapped to the back of her little vehicle, and then got out a pickaxe. She could cut down the Amur Honeysuckle, but that wouldn’t kill it. Only getting the whole rootball out would do it. Fortunately, the bushes were brittle and didn’t thrust a taproot deep into the earth like some trees did.

Laying out her tools, she started with the chainsaw, cutting off the stems at knee height. She stacked them at the far side of the narrow access road, with a word of apology to the graves she was temporarily using as a resting place. Smiling at her own nonsense, she dusted off her gloves and then reached for the pickaxe. As she bent, something caught her eye on the bare ground. Where the honeysuckles had shaded out everything else, and the dirt was exposed, there was an oily spot on the ground.

Chloe poked at it with the pointy end of her tool. Just under the moist earth, there came up iridescent bubbles of oil. Or something, because it was sticky, and pulled up strands of stuff when she lifted the pick again.

“Ugh.”

It was far from the first time she’d had to clean up trash in the cemetery. People would throw all kinds of stuff over the wall.

“All right, then, gross.” She muttered aloud to herself. Talking to herself had never been something Chloe worried about, at least not since she’d started this job. Being overheard and answered when no people were around, well, that was just one of many strange quirks about her job. .

Then she shrugged and avoided the spilled goo, stepping over to the base of the honeysuckle. She swung the pick, broad end down, near the base where she would sever roots. The plan was to work her way around it, then use the shovel to pry it out if necessary.

The ground erupted with a black, gooey stuff, shimmering oily as it spurted around the blade of the pick. Chloe jumped back, dropping the pick. With a schlorp, the black stuff curled around the metal head of the pick and pulled it down into the ground.

Chloe sprinted for her cart. This was above her pay grade. She looked back as she started the cart, and saw that the black stuff had disappeared, as had the pick. She headed downhill as rapidly as she dared, to get her boss for help with the new anomaly in Belleview. Ghosts she could handle. The resident ghoul was practically a friend. This stuff? She wanted nothing to do with it, if it was going to try and pull her under the dirt.

The library door was locked. She pounded on it, and then waited a couple of minutes, leaning against the railing around the small landing. Mr. Cruor was never out. Except, it seemed, that today he was. She headed for her apartment over the stables where she could call for him using a telephone, which was wildly out of the ordinary. Today was such a Monday.

After leaving a voicemail she made tea. Then, she remembered that she’d left both the chainsaw and the shovel when she’d fled from the weird black stuff. Chloe jittered from foot to foot, which reminded her of Benny’s nervous movements, so she made herself relax, sip tea, and try to think. The stuff hadn’t reacted until she’d hit it hard. She should be fine with just getting the tools, which were several yards away from it.

Chloe headed back up more slowly than she had gone up earlier, and much more slowly than she had come down. She had taken the time to grab a few more things from her storage shed before she’d left. She’d hoped her boss would materialize, or perhaps return her call, but the big funeral home stood still and dark. The towncar was gone from the stables, which had long since been converted to a garage, so she presumed he had driven somewhere. Even if she could drive, which she couldn’t without a driver’s license, she had no idea where he had gone.

Chloe pulled up where she had parked before, and took a deep breath. The place looked the same. The wilting leaves of her bushy enemy on one side, the tools laid on the verge beside her. She hopped down and picked them up, with a wary eye on the stump. The black stuff had left oil stains on the dirt, but was hidden again.

Chloe hefted the shovel in her hand, thoughtfully. She was wondering just how big it was, what it was, and if it was supposed to be there. She cleared her throat.

“H-hello? Um. I didn’t mean to poke you. I was just trying to dig up the bush.”

There was silence. Chloe shrugged. It had been worth a try. Something else was worth a try, since her boss wasn’t available to ask.

She put her tools away, and headed down towards Benny’s territory. The ghoul always seemed to know everything that was going on in the cemetery. He should have answers.

“No.” Benny crossed his arms, and looked away from her, hunching one shoulder up between them. Chloe wasn’t close to him, so she couldn’t see his face from this angle. “No, I ain’t been up in that part. I don’t go there.”

Chloe cocked her head. “I thought you went everywhere in Belleview.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Don’t.”

“Ok.” She started the cart up. “So you don’t know what happens up on the hill.”

“I don’t, and I don’t wanna.” He turned his back, and started to shuffle towards his crypt. “Goin’ back to sleep now.”

”Sorry I woke you, Benny.” Chloe called after him.

Now, she was puzzling over the way he’d reacted. He liked to talk. He seemed to prefer talking to her than to anyone else, when she’d interacted with him and her boss, or him and a ghost. If he was frightened of the sector of the cemetery she’d been working in, it meant she should wait for her boss to get back. Having retrieved her tools, she retreated back to the main house.

As she coasted into the parking lot, she saw the town car turning into the gates, which were open. Right behind the familiar vehicle was another one, which looked a lot like an unmarked police car to Chloe. She could remember when she wouldn’t have even thought that, much less been so certain of it, but that was before she’d come to work at Belleview. The automatic garage door slid open, and Mr. Crour parked in his place. The cop parked in the nearest spot to the main entrance. Chloe scooted her little cart behind the shed and pondered pretending she was busy in there, and hadn’t seen them. She wondered how long this would keep her boss tied up.

“Chloe?” Mr. Crour walked around the corner, a man wearing a polo shirt, gray slacks, and a gun on his hip right behind him. “Would you please join us in the library?”

Chloe swallowed, and nodded. She pulled off the thin leather gloves she’d been wearing, and tucked those in the glove compartment, with her usual internal amusement at using that for it’s intended purpose, for the first and only time in her life. Her mother’s car held a manual, far too many napkins, and always hair scrunchies, which Chloe had raided many time. Never gloves, though, they went in the center console.. Having dawdled as long as she dared, she headed for the big house, where the men had already gone in while she was being slow.

“Would you prefer coffee, or tea, Detective?” Mr. Cruor was asking as Chloe slipped into the room.

“Coffee, if you have it?” The detective was looking around the room with interested, sharp eyes.

“I should,” Mr. Crour murmured. “Miss Brandt, this is Detective Murray. I will be back in a moment.”

This last was addressed to the policeman, and then he slipped away through the side door.

“Um,” Chloe felt that she’d been left to entertain the man, and wasn’t pleased with this development. “Hi?”

“You are very young. No offense.”

“I mean, relative to...? I guess?”

Detective Murray chuckled. His dark hair was liberally sprinkled with silver on the sides of his short haircut. He had laugh lines, which Chloe thought meant that he had a sense of humor.

“I have a sixteen year old daughter.” He informed her, the crinkles beside his eyes still prominent.

“I’m twenty.”

“Close enough.” He grinned at her. “You work here?”

“I’m the groundskeeper and caretaker.” Chloe wasn’t sure how much she should say. Could say. There were things that would make her sound absolutely mental. “Sometimes I do a little research.”

“You’re a student?” His eyes were narrowed. “I know the name, you’ve been...”

“Miss Brandt is becoming my girl Friday, Detective.” Mr. Crour returned bearing a tray with coffee cups on it, and a silver pot gently steaming.

Chloe moved rolls of maps off the library table, and her boss put down the tray. It had to have been heavy, but he didn’t bat an eye.

“Please have a seat, Detective, and you, Miss Brandt. I believe you will also take coffee?”

“Yes, that’s fine.” She sat as the other man did, and Mr. Crour poured for both of them.

“Miss Brandt has been assisting me with some puzzles, and last year, she discovered remains which were, ah, not where they were supposed to be.”

“Oh!” The detective paused, his cup halfway to his mouth. “I remember that, yes.”

“Indeed. This is why I asked her to join us, as I believe you have come about the bodies just outside the cemetery.”

Chloe shivered at the memory of the tiny gravestones and the frantic ghosts who had tugged at her so hungrily.

“Yes, just trying to clear up some loose ends.” Detective Murray set down his cup and looked sharply at Mr. Cruour.

“You may speak freely. Miss Brandt has not yet been sworn in, but she perceives more, ah... clearly than most.”

Chloe, confused, looked back and forth between the two of them. The detective was staring at her boss, his lips pressed tightly together like he was biting back words. Mr. Crour had that totally placid look on his face. She knew that look, it meant he was deliberately teaching a lesson. She’d been on the receiving end of that cool calmness before.

She sat back in her chair, cradling the coffee. She wasn’t going to drink it too fast, as it had a tendency to put her to sleep. It was warm, and that was nice on a day like today. She made a mental note to be sure and tell Mr. Crour about the sticky black stuff that tried to steal her pickaxe.

“I was hoping,” Detective Murray lost the battle of wills, and spoke first. “To get a statement about what made you go to that house, and then to report that there was illicit burial taking place.”

“You know I cannot explain that in an affidavit, detective.” Mr. Crour’s tone was sharper than Chloe could remember hearing it before. “No legal documents, you know that.”

“Anonymous tip, then?”

“You can certainly say that.”

The two men looked at Chloe. Chloe thought about Benny. “It wasn’t me. I’m busy enough in the cemetery without going around doing urbex.”

“Urbex?” Detective Murray’s face was a picture of confusion.

“Urban exploration.” Chloe shrugged. “Usually they take photos or video of ruined places, and it’s sort of beautiful in an ironic way, you know?”

Detective Murray looked at Mr. Crour, who was faintly amused. Chloe could tell from the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes, much like those the detective had displayed earlier. “Well if someone was prowling in the old house and fell through that hole in the floor, then called it in, that would explain it.”

Mr. Crour inclined his head slightly.

“But you two don’t know anything more you can tell me.” He tucked the small notebook back into his pocket.

Chloe thought about the stories the ghosts had told her, and shook her head emphatically. She wasn’t going to lie, but she wasn’t going to get an insanity label, either.

“Nothing helpful, no,” her boss murmured. “So sorry.”

“I’d best be going, then.”

“I do have another matter to discuss with you.” Mr. Crour stood. “Miss Brandt, if you don’t mind? This is confidential.”

Chloe put her nearly full cup down and got up herself. “There’s something I need to talk to you about...” she looked at the detective, “but I guess it can wait.”

She left the library, feeling oddly lonely. Outside, she shook herself slightly, reminding herself that it was not at all logical to feel excluded. Of course Mr. Crour had business she wasn’t part of. She didn’t need to know everything. Putting her shoulders back and chin up, she muttered to herself.

“Mediators don’t get to solve mysteries, just facilitate them.”

The rain started to patter down, and she made a dash for her apartment. The black goo was the last thing on her mind, and she didn’t even remember she had forgotten it, by morning.